


maschinenmensch: a Metropolis / Star Wars story

by okaypianist



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Author cannot be quiet about her love for silent film, Chapter titles are from Metropolis intertitles, Crossover, F/M, Finn is Worker 11811, Force Bond (Star Wars), Happily Ever After, Hux is Rotwang, Kylo is Freder, Leia is Hel, Metropolis AU, Rey is Maria, Snoke is Joh Fredersen, Space fantasy turned science fantasy, why did I make my chapters so short?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-08-17 06:52:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 6,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16511405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaypianist/pseuds/okaypianist
Summary: Rey lives underground in the Workers' City. Kylo lives above Metropolis with the other rich men's sons. What happens when she first sees the light... and when he first sees her?





	1. Shift change

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first fic: the Star Wars / Metropolis crossover that no one asked for, but which I happily provide.

Rey drags her weary body down a long, dark hallway. She and hundreds of other workers stumble home after their ten-hour shifts in the factories.

The workers keep the machines running.  
The machines keep the city above them running.

Kylo drags a heavy bag across the finish line of the races. He comes in first, again. He feels bored, again. He looks around the lush gardens surrounding the track and wonders why, in all this greenery, he feels so blue.

He has time to wax poetic.  
He has time to wax his eyebrows.

This is all he knows.

This is all she knows.

This is how they have both spent many days.

They do not know that this is the last day they will ever be alone again.

And so Rey keeps on feeling cold and insignificant. Kylo keeps on feeling overwhelmed and under-utilized.

But you know better. You know what they do not know yet:

The Mediator between their Heads and their Hands must be their Hearts.


	2. Fathers for whom every revolution of a machine wheel meant gold

Rey peers down a small hallway. She holds a candle in one hand and a book in the other. She holds both fear and hope in her heart.

Snoke leers out of a twenty-seventh story window. He watches stock information scrolling on a screen to his left, a conference call starting up on a screen to his right, and cars crisscrossing the many city roads below. His workers know that his heart and his hope are both long gone.

Rey loves this secret hiding place. She loves fighting for the cause. She loves every worker brave enough to meet with her, and even every worker who is too afraid or busy or indifferent to show up to meetings.

Snoke loved a woman, once. Now, she is gone. He does not love Kylo. He does not love his money. He does not love at all.

Rey has dreams.  
Snoke has nightmares.

Rey has no idea that her grandest dreams are the same as Snoke's worst nightmares.


	3. Look! These are your brothers!

Rey speaks to the weary workers who have gathered in the catacombs with her. She tells them how the Tower of Alderaan was built, and how it fell. She wants them to believe that the New Tower is destined to fall, too. Maybe this time, there will not be so many lives lost.

After the meeting ends, she carefully gathers up the maps and plans that the workers have brought to her. These, her book, and her candle, she carries with her back to her bunk. After extinguishing the candle and hiding the written materials, she wraps the only blanket she owns tightly around her shoulders and hurries to meet the children.

_The_ children?  
The _only_ children?

Maybe there are children who live above the Workers' City, but Rey is not sure. The Workers' City is all she knows. The hope that these children will not grow up down in the depths is all she knows.

She and the children sneak through hallways and elevators and doorways that are forbidden to them. Rey does not understand why children should be forbidden to see the sun, so she keeps walking until...

suddenly...  
somehow...  
the Light.  
It's always been there.

Outside, in the shade beneath the Palace of the Gods, Kylo Ren sees a wall move, way out of the corner of his eye. He knows that walls do not, in fact, usually move, no matter how technologically advanced things are in Metropolis. He turns his head to investigate, and then he takes a step...

and another...  
when he notices...  
A woman.  
She's never been here.


	4. The miracle of the Eternal Gardens

Rey's lips part and her eyes widen as she adjusts slowly to the harsh light of day. She breathes in the sweet smell of flowers and thinks she can never get enough. All around her, the children shout and giggle and grasp at her arms in excitement.

Kylo hears none of the children's noises. He ignores the other sons competing in the Palace games with him. All he sees is a tall woman with big, round, kind, nervous eyes.

 _What is she so afraid of?_  
_What is she doing here?_  
_Why have I never seen her before?_  
_...Why do I suddenly understand why none of the women sent to entertain us ever interested me before?_  
_Does she live Below?  
_ _Can she feel how much I suddenly care about her, against all odds, against all common sense, against every bit of advice my father has ever given me?_

He snaps out of his reverie in time to hear her say to the children gathered around her, "Look! These are your brothers!"

__

Then suddenly, he understands.  
He knows what he has to do.

__


	5. Your magnificent city, Father, and you the brain of this city

Kylo wonders where the woman and children are heading when they disappear back through the door. He knows, somehow, that he will see her again, so he hurries to his father's office.

Snoke looks up from his desk when Kylo stumbles in with a dreamy look on his young face. Snoke briefly wonders what has the boy looking so dopey, but after the dozens of women he's sent prancing through the Palace of the Gods, it stands to reason that Kylo would finally notice one of them.

Kylo stuns Snoke by asking him, "The workers- the ones down in the depths- are they happy?"

"Happy? How should I know? Why should you care? They power the city and the city is all that matters."

"But... father... don't you ever wonder what would happen if those who live Below suddenly decided they didn't want to stay Below any longer? If they decided to rise up?"

Snoke is flummoxed. Why should Kylo be in here asking about Below, on the very day that one of his foremen has recovered a mysterious map? A map of the catacombs, which seems to be plotting this very thing... an uprising? 

Snoke thought he would never feel threatened again after the Tower of Alderaan fell. He feels threatened now.


	6. What if one day those in the depths rise up against you?

After dismissing Kylo with the vaguest of excuses, Snoke rubs his temples in the feeble hope of staving off a headache.

Snoke thought that by now, the business of running the offices could be Kylo's. Snoke wants to be spending all his time in the Tinkerer's workshop, finishing the project that may one day restore his beloved woman to him. And yet - these plans, these murmurings, these worries of rebellion, keep him at the helm. He knows that Kylo is fit to lead in a time of quiet, but only he himself knows how to filter correctly when the noise is this loud.

He wonders briefly if Kylo has somehow met someone from Below and if that person is the source of this foolish inquiry.

 _Oh, Kylo, if you love someone outside your own world, how very like your father you are,_ he thinks.

Kylo still calls Snoke his Father. He does not recall his true father. Snoke knows that this is all for the best.

Surely the boy could not be so sentimental and foolish. Kylo's blood family cannot be allowed to muck up Metropolis again.

 


	7. Someone has to stay at the machine!

Kylo feels as though an invisible power is guiding him through the many tunnels, elevators and doors Below. He is not sure how, but he knows this half-formed plan is going to lead him to the woman with the kind eyes.

At the center of a hot, dark room, there is a large machine with many disheveled workers at its controls. Kylo creeps up a rickety ladder and taps the closest worker on the shoulder.

"Hello, sir. Are you the foreman?"

"Am I what? Who the hell are you, dressed in fine clothes like those down in a machine room?" is the mumbled reply. 

The worker has only given Kylo a few glances out of the corner of his eye. His mental and physical energy are all on moving a set of controls to different blinking lights in a huge arc around him.

"Sir... what is your name, please?" Kylo pleads.

"Name? They only call us by our designations down here. I'm Worker 2187."

"Thank you, Mister twenty-one eighty-seven. I have an idea that might interest you."

The worker barely spares Kylo a roll of his eyes and one raised brow.

"And what's that?"

"I want to trade lives with you."


	8. Someone will stay at the machine... ME.

Kylo and Worker 2187 have a hushed conversation as the worker continues to man the dials. Their plan is formed:

\- They will trade clothes, and trade lives, for one day.

\- As the workers are masked, no one will ask Kylo questions as long as he does 2187's job adequately.

\- In Kylo's fine clothes, and with the access chip from Snoke, no one will dare to bother 2187- as no one dares to chance angering their leader.

\- Kylo-as-worker will complete this shift, then try to find the mystery woman and find out how to help her ("And the children! You must save them too!" Worker 2187 insists).

\- Worker-as-a-rich-man is free to enjoy himself above on Kylo's dime, as long as he meets back at Kylo's apartment in twenty hours, or two revolutions of the ten-hour Metropolis clock.

They shuffle pieces of their outfits to each other, and then Kylo gives a stiff nod to 2187. 

"Don't you dare try to disappear. My father and I have little patience for traitors," Kylo threatens.

The worker grimaces, but wisely does not comment. He double-checks the address Kylo has written down (his apartment), then sneaks out an exit Kylo hadn't noticed in his haste to enter the room and spring into action.

Kylo lowers the worker's mask over his face and loses himself in the dull task of chasing blinking lights around a circular display.

He does not see numbers and energy readouts and heavy machine arms. He sees only one face, only one dream, only one thought: soon he will find that lovely girl and his life story will finally have some joy in it.


	9. He has himself driven to Yoshiwara, Metropolis's entertainment district

Worker 2187 has NEVER worn clothes like these. He feels lighter than air as he dashes along the city streets. He has money in his - Kylo's - pockets, a spring in his step and a purpose in his mind. Making sure to keep careful note of the cross-streets so as not to get lost, 2187 wends his way through Metropolis until he finds a district called Yoshiwara.

Yoshiwara is where the rich men's sons entertain themselves after dark, when the races are over and their beds are too cold to return to alone. The men fling their money at the lovely waitresses and dancers, hoping to find companionship for at least a little while.

2187 quickly tires of the Yoshiwara district. He wonders... who are these women? Are they happy? If he had been born a woman, would he have become Dancer 2187 instead?

Mulling this over, the worker in fine borrowed clothes is about to exit the club... when someone grabs him by the back of his fancy coat and yanks him into a dim hallway...

______

Kylo-as-a-worker quickly realizes that, though he is strong, he lacks stamina. Ten hours on your feet at a machine, yanking controls and dials at seemingly random intervals to correspond with blinking lights- and for what? What is this machine doing? 

Kylo starts to fall behind on the machine's rapid demands. He sweats and grunts and feels his limbs grow heavy with exhaustion. His vision dims, and it seems that a haze is closing in on him...

_____

Rey cannot stop thinking about that tall man she saw in the city. Who was he? Why did he give her such a strange look when she told the children, "these are your brothers?" Will he help her? Why does she have the strangest feeling that she will instead be helping him?

_____

Snoke waits. Snoke hates waiting.


	10. In the middle of Metropolis is a strange house, overlooked by the centuries.

The man who grabbed the back of Kylo's coat, expecting Kylo to be inside it, is an inventor named Hux. Hux does not bother to ask 2187 how he came to be wearing Kylo's jacket. Hux assumes that Kylo lost it in a game of cards, or forgot it somewhere, or did something else disappointing. Hux always finds Kylo disappointing.

Hux drags 2187 into his car, promising to explain later, and then hurries them off to a small, forgotten home in the middle of the enormous city.

Snoke is there in Hux's house, as he was expecting Hux to be tailing Kylo and coming back with news. Hux splutters out excuses and Snoke barely listens to them. Snoke only puts up with Hux because of their special project.

2187 wonders how long he'll be in this strange house with no way to contact Kylo- to warn him of this strange man, Hux, or to switch places with him again.

_____

Through the fog clouding Kylo's eyes, he barely manages to glimpse a woman... the same woman he saw outside the Palace today. He can only just make out the words she is saying: "I'll help you. I saw it."

Meanwhile, Rey is daydreaming as she sets up for the next secret workers' rally, when she thinks of the tall man from above. She feels like she sees him everywhere, and she imagines him saying to her, "I saw something, too."

_____

When 2187's shift is finally over, an exhausted Kylo makes his way further Below. He follows a crowd of workers sneaking through the tunnels, and then he hears it: the woman's voice.

"And so, you see: the Mediator between Head and Hands must be the Heart..."

...and then she stops speaking and looks up. Even though Kylo is wearing a mask, he feels like, somehow, she sees. She knows...


	11. Oh mediator, have you finally come?

Kylo smiles at the woman before realizing that he is wearing Worker 2187's mask. So why is she smiling back? 

"Hello, Mediator," says the woman. "I'm Rey. I remember you. I knew you would come to us."

Kylo takes off the worker's mask. He drops it, straightens up, and asks, "What do you mean? How could you know who I am?"

"I saw you before and I felt you would come back. I have tried to keep the spark of hope alive. It has been so hard to smile Below, but I always dreamed of a Mediator to rescue us. When our eyes met, I knew it would be you."

Kylo is stunned. How could she assume so much from just a few moments?

He watches as Rey reaches her hand out from beneath the threadbare blanket she is holding tightly around herself. He blinks. Does she want to touch him? 

Kylo puts out his hand as well. He is sure he must be wrong. Why would Rey think he is a good man, when he is a stranger in another stranger's clothes? How could he be worth her trust?

Their hands inch closer to each other. Kylo's arm shakes, but Rey's is steady. She believes in him, even though he does not yet believe in himself.

When their fingertips finally touch, Kylo feels like lightning shoots up his whole arm. Rey lets a single tear of joy and shock fall down her face.

She nods.  
He smiles.  
They both see something amazing.


	12. Only their hope for a mediator is keeping the workers in check.

Hux takes his inventions very seriously. His latest project has been a life-long dream: the maschinenmensch.  
Machine-man.  
The usefulness of a machine.  
The likeness of a man...  
or of a woman.

Here, Snoke and Hux disagree. 

Hux wants the maschinenmensch to truly be a man.  
A male.  
A strong warrior.  
One to strike fear into any who would dare to venture up from Below.

Snoke wants it to be something else.  
A woman.  
A fierce goddess.  
One to replace a particularly disappointing human woman whose whereabouts are unknown.

Hux flips a few more switches, presses a button and turns several dials.

Lights flicker.  
Energy crackles.  
Sensors ping.

And then.  
It moves.  
The maschinenmensch opens its eyes.  
Stands up stiffly.  
Walks through the room as Snoke and Hux stare in awe.

_____

In all the excitement and noise of the maschinenmensch successfully powering up for the first time, Hux and Snoke fail to notice the worker in Kylo's clothes sneaking quietly out of the house. On his way out, Worker 2187 even has time to read a tiny bronze plaque on the wall that makes him shiver in fear before he continues his escape.

_____

Kylo is not sure if he is worthy of Rey's trust, but he wants to be. When their hands touched just now, he somehow saw what he hopes is their future. Together.

Rey smiles, which seems to light up her whole face. Kylo stares into her hazel eyes. Before he can really understand what is happening, he feels her hand moving. 

He feels almost hurt.  
_Did I not do it right?_

Then, he realizes... she isn't moving away.

She is moving closer.

He places one hand on her waist and winds the other hand in her hair. She clutches at his strong shoulders.

A kiss.  
It is just one thing.  
But it is everything.


	13. Who feeds the machines with their own flesh...?! Let the machines starve, you fools-! Let them die-!!

After Snoke leaves, Hux lets out a sigh of relief. The maschinenmensch is nearly complete. He only needs to choose a human likeness, program in the details of their features, and then apply them to the outside of the machine. It is delicate work, but Hux is smart enough.

_If only Snoke appreciated just how smart I truly am._

Hux walks through his small home, barely noticing his surroundings until he reaches the plaque. The bronze one that Worker 2187 saw before he slipped out.

**\--- LEIA ---**

BORN  
FOR MANKIND'S BLESSING

LOST  
TO HAN SOLO

DIED  
GIVING BIRTH TO BEN SOLO, HAN SOLO'S SON

Next to the plaque is a small holovid display of Leia, looping endlessly. She smiles and waves and tosses her intricately braided hair over her shoulder.

And yet- Hux knows that this little shrine is founded on lies.

Leia lives.

Hux thinks that, as a new future is being born, it is time for all of the lies the past was founded on to finally die.

_____

Kylo and Rey's foreheads are touching, their arms still wrapped around each other. They are breathless and reluctant to separate. Far away in the distance, a ten-hour clock chimes.

It is already time for the next shift change.  
Time to go meet up with Worker 2187.  
Time to stop holding each other.  
A terrible time.

Rey catches Kylo's left hand and leads him back to the main machine room.

Their footfalls are light.  
Their pace is quick.  
But they forgot, in their haste, to replace the Worker's mask over Kylo's flushed face.

In one of the catacombs, for just one moment, as they creep along...  
there is a  
tiny  
flash  
of chrome.


	14. For I concealed from him that his son wants to be your brothers' mediator - and loves you!

Captain Phasma, a woman in peculiar chrome armor, is the one who saw Rey and Kylo running through the catacombs. She enters this message into her comm:

**The Solo boy is not solo anymore. I have seen him holding hands with a little wisp of a girl, some filthy worker down here. What do you think he knows? Did he tell her anything?!? Please advise.**

This message goes to Snoke, who is incensed.

Snoke dials Hux on a holocall and barks into the receiver, "We have found my idiot boy at last.Stay at home with the maschinenmensch. Phasma will soon deliver you a pitiful creature from Below. I demand that you craft our invention in this girl's likeness instead."

As Snoke disconnects the holocall without waiting for an answer, Hux thinks, _Our invention? The work was all mine. It was supposed to be the first of many men in a new clone army. Why is this once more about the ridiculous Solos?_

Snoke sends the following message back to Phasma's comm:

**If what you say about this girl is true, bring her to me.**

_____

Rey leaves Kylo with a light kiss on the cheek and a lingering smile. She hurries back to her berth to change clothes. Her plain is to meet up with Kylo and Worker 2187 shortly.

When Worker 2187 sees Kylo, he bursts out in anxious whispers, explaining all he saw and read.

Kylo's head somehow feels too tight. His ears are too hot. His chest is surely too small to contain his thundering heart.

Those names.  
Han.  
Leia.  
Ben...

He pales and crumples to the ground in a shivering heap.

He knows.  
He senses.  
He remembers.


	15. If the Heart Machine is destroyed, the entire machine district will end up in ruins.

Captain Phasma follows Rey through the catacombs. Even in stiff chrome armor, she is quick and silent. She sneaks up behind Rey and prods Rey's shoulder with a strange device that seems to contain lightning itself inside its tip.

Rey falls wordlessly and painlessly to the ground. Phasma scoops her up and lugs her back to Metropolis.

_____

Kylo - who now remembers that his birth name was Ben - is trying to collect himself before Worker 2187 can figure out what's wrong.

However, the worker is sharp and intuitive... and even if he were not, seeing another man falling to his knees while shaking and sweating is usually a hint that all is not well...

"Are you all right?"

"Of course I am!" Snaps Kylo-formerly-Ben. "Are you certain you remembered those names correctly? What kind of names are Leia and Han, anyway?"

"I'm not sure," offers the worker, "but I do know that my memory is perfectly clear."

Kylo stands.  
Turns.  
Narrows his eyes right at 2187.  
Takes a deep breath.  
And bellows,  
"Traitor!!"

_____

Hux makes the necessary adjustments to the controls near the maschinenmensch, then presses Rey's limp hand onto a control pad.

More lights flash.

If the first powering-up was like the dawn, then this is high noon on a cloudless day.

Blink!  
Flash!  
Clink clink clink!  


And the machinenmensch has the likeness of a stronger,  
darker-eyed,  
less essentially human  
version  
of  
Rey.


	16. Verily, I say unto you, the days spoken of in the Apocalypse are nigh...!

The maschinenmensch, who looks like a twisted version of Rey, goes to Yoshiwara. In this den of sin, machine-Rey makes herself at home. Inside a filthy club, she flings her arms out in a frenzied dance, faster and faster, her spins getting tighter and tighter. All the men there gape at this bold creature wearing Rey's face. Some of these men may have seen Rey, but they have never seen a Rey like this.

The real Rey is locked up by Captain Phasma in Hux's house, as Snoke demands. Snoke starts making his way over to the house from his office. His steps are unhurried, and his usually scowling face is remarkably relaxed. He has no idea what he will find at the home of his prized inventor.

_____

Worker 2187 is smart enough, and calm enough, to ignore Kylo's ranting.

"If I am a traitor, then so are you," he responds matter-of-factly. "If you want to help one of us Below, you're going to have to help us all." 

"Fine!" spits Kylo. "Just hurry to the Heart Machine with me, and do not tell anyone what you know."

_____ 

That strange impulse, the one that led Rey to take the children from Below upstairs, is whispering to her again. 

_The ropes,_ it croons. _You can wish these knots away._

Rey knows this is ridiculous. Whoever heard of just wishing yourself out of trouble? She's wished for that her whole life.

And yet... that insistent voice is what brought her to the Garden, and to the man she is sure will save all her people.

So she listens.   
And concentrates.  
And wishes  
her chains  
a w a y.


	17. Where are our children, you witch??!

Rey has always been fond of the tales of Leia. She has enjoyed retelling them to the workers Below. She does not know if they are true, but to Rey that doesn't matter. What matters are what she sees as the essential details: a strong woman fought for her people, and though the Tower of Alderaan was destroyed, that same strong woman kept working to rebuild the city, rock by rock.

After Rey miraculously manages to snap open her bindings - she still isn't sure how she did it - she sneaks through the alleys of Metropolis. She hopes she'll find her way back to her beloved Mediator soon, as it's growing dark and cold. Rey keeps replaying the stories of brave Leia and willing herself to be a strong woman, too.

_____

The machine-Rey does not know the real Rey's history. She knows only what the inventor Hux has programmed into her. She knows that she has to convince the people she finds in Yoshiwara to go crush the workers' rebellion. 

Her first little part of the plan was to dance and get everyone's attention. That worked splendidly. As all eyes in the club are upon her, she whispers conspiratorially, "Follow me if you want to really feel alive tonight."

The maschinenmensch then slinks off the stage and out the door, and the huge crowd follows her. Some of them look nervous or confused, but they are all just bored enough, or drunk enough, or discontent enough to take part in something strange tonight.

The crowd makes its way to the elevators, and after they descend, they find themselves near the Heart Machine.

The Heart Machine was the huge metal beast Kylo took the place of Worker 2187 at earlier. It is the thing that powers the city of Metropolis most directly.

A failure of the Heart Machine would be for the city above like the failure of the heart is for a human: the end.


	18. But the mob roars and throws hammers at her.

Kylo and 2187 were swift in their journey to the Heart Machine. Unfortunately, they were not as swift as the crowd following the maschinenmensch was.

Machine-Rey and her rowdy group climb all over the machine. She was only supposed to go and stop the Workers' rebellion.

Instead...

It seems...

She has created a rebellion of her own.

The crowd is growing restless and angry.  
They pound at the machine.  
They snip wires.  
They bang on pipes.  
They ignore sensors.

And somehow...

in the chaos...

they start a flood.

No one is sure quite how in the aftermath, but this disgruntled group has caused water to start pooling beneath everyone's feet.

_____

As Kylo and Worker 2187 are nearly to the Heart Machine, they notice the water on the ground. 2187 yells, "The children! We have to help the children, let's go!" and takes off running.

Kylo is worried about finding Rey again.  
He is worried about the - repressed? - deleted? - corrupted? - memories of his family that came rushing back to him.  
He is worried about the strange leak.  
He is so worried that he doesn't know what to do, so he runs after 2187.

_____

The real Rey is hoping to catch up with the man she believes will free her heart.

The machine Rey is hoping to calm down the crowd she believes is about to break the Heart Machine.


	19. Your children... saved...!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo holds out his gloved hand for Rey. He wants to help her down from her perch on the machine.

Kylo follows Worker 2187 until they both come upon a group of nervous children. Somehow, in their haste to follow Machine-Rey, the angry crowd has forgotten about how many people really live Below. 

2187 and Kylo quickly convince the children to follow them back toward the elevators. The kids are just grateful to have someone to help them figure out what to do. Since they cannot all fit in one trip, the men help the kids organize themselves into two groups. Kylo takes the first group when 2187 insists. The water level slowly but surely continues to rise, and along with it, Kylo's fears for Rey's safety.

Once he has sent every child with him running toward higher ground near the Tower gardens, Kylo dips back down Below. He knows waiting above would be safer, and yet he is too anxious about Rey to stay put.

If he knows anything about her yet, it's that she's likely to be out helping others instead of taking care of her safety.

Kylo doesn't care.  
He can be selfish enough for the both of them.  
Or so he thinks.

Until he sees Rey...   
with an angry glint in her eyes...   
dancing and yelling...   
and helping a mob destroy the Heart Machine...?

Surely not.  
Not his Rey.  
Can it be?

__________

Worker 2187 makes one last sweep of the barracks, corrals a few more kids, sloshes through the now-knee-deep water with them, and barely leaps onto the second round of elevators as they creak upward. Unlike Kylo, he hurries with his group of kids toward the city center. He hopes that the matter of reuniting hundreds of parents with their children will miraculously be swift.

__________

Kylo holds out his gloved hand for Rey. He wants to help her down from her perch on the machine. But Rey refuses. She simply laughs at him.

"Join me," he begs. "It isn't safe to stay here. Let's go, Rey... please."


	20. Head and hands want to join together but they don't have the heart to do it...

Machine-Rey smirks at Kylo. 

"I'm not giving you anything."

His face crumples. How can the woman with kind eyes be wearing this horrible sneer?

"Rey... please."

The maschinenmensch leaps off of the Heart Machine... and into the arms of a stranger. She helps him and the rest of the mob as they deface the machine further.

Water is sloshing around on the floor. Kylo's heart feels like it's sloshing around in his shoes. He turns to leave the machine room.

__________

Worker 2187 is out on the grounds of the Palace of the Gods. He tries to make sure that the children are safe. He starts trying to connect parents with their kids, brothers with sisters, friends with each other. All he can think of to do is to help them reunite.

There are a few distraught parents who cannot find their kids. 2187 tries to reassure them that all the children made it out with either him or Kylo and he asks them to be patient.

Suddenly, a woman in chrome armor stalks into the garden.

"Why should they be patient?" She jeers. "Why should they trust you? What have you done with the children, you bit of scum?" 

Phasma and 2187 begin to fight. He is simply trying to calm her down before the crowd gets more anxious, but she is aggressive and he finds himself fighting back.

The crowd grows and grows. Disheveled people come up, sweaty and soaked, clearly having been Below and banging around in the machine room. They yell, "Where are our children?" having quickly forgotten that they were the ones putting kids in danger.

In the crowd, over Phasma's shoulder, Worker 2187 spies... 

Rey?  
That can't be right...  
She would never be running away.


	21. Oh mediator, show them the way to each other...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If 2187 had time to take note of their differences, he would see that the real Rey has a face that is clean except for a few smudges of dirt or debris. Her signature three buns are coming undone and her tan and gray workers' clothes are fraying. 
> 
> The machine-Rey, however, has a face that is all angles and sharpness, as if it has been contoured and highlighted to be the most severe. She wears not three buns, but two, circling over her ears, in a style reminiscent of a royal from the old Alderaan with whom 2187 is familiar.

Worker 2187 was right. Rey would never run away. After she escaped the room Phasma put her in, Rey had been frantically trying to find Kylo or 2187 again. She was not sure which way to go and she has been wandering in the crowd.

As the angry crowd shouts and shoves, they begin to eventually take up a cry: "Make her pay! Make her pay!" 2187, still battling with Phasma, is confused- sure, she is mean, but this whole mess cannot possibly be this woman's fault...

They are not jeering at Phasma.  
They are hollering at Rey.

2187 sees Rey lifted up into the crowd.  
The mob binds her hands and her legs.  
They pile sticks near her feet. 

2187 is terrified. He searches the crowd again, still fighting off Phasma, and hoping for a familiar face to help him save Rey.

__________

Kylo is crushed. 

The revelation of his family history did not shake him much. It sent him into a tantrum, sure, but Snoke allowed Kylo to have plenty of those.

The exploding machinery and the leaking Heart Machine could not keep him from acting. If he had been alone, he would have tried to fix it. If he wanted to harm the mob, they would have felt his wrath.

No, Kylo has been crushed by a girl. He feels like a weak, mewling thing. He wonders how he allowed himself to trust her, even for a day.

__________

2187 finally sees, in the mob...  
Rey?  
Now he is sure he must be losing his mind.

But 2187 is right, again. This time he has spotted the machine-Rey. This cruel, twisted thing wearing Rey's likeness sidles up to the real Rey's feet and taunts her.

If 2187 had time to take note of their differences, he would see that the real Rey has a face that is clean except for a few smudges of dirt or debris from her escape. Her signature three buns are coming undone and her tan and gray, standard-issue workers' clothes are fraying. 

The machine-Rey, however, has a face that is all angles and sharpness, as if it has been contoured and highlighted to be the most severe that a hazel-eyed beauty possibly can look. She wears not three buns, but two, circling over her ears. This hairstyle is reminiscent of a woman from the first Tower of Alderaan, a woman with whom 2187 is passingly familiar.

But of course, 2187 is only capable, under such severe distress, of having the one thought...

"Two Reys?!?!  
Will she save everything or lose everything?!?"


	22. THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN HEAD AND HANDS MUST BE THE HEART!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I am not a robot," says Rey. "She is. She is wearing my face, but she does not wear my feelings. Can we work together to build a city where all of us get to see the sun?"

Worker 2187 finally wins his duel with Phasma. She falls, out cold for now, but he wonders if he will one day see her again.

The children who have been reunited with their families are pouring into the gardens, splashing in the fountains, and roaming everywhere else around the Palace grounds to play. Above or Below seems to be no meaningful distinction anymore: children are children, and children like to play.

Kylo spies the two Reys and instantly figures out what 2187 could not: one is real and one is fake. Kylo sees the light shining in the real Rey's eyes, even through her fear, and he knows.

Kylo fights the machine-Rey, and 2187 hurries over to help. Kylo huffs out an explanation to 2187, as best he can.

"Save- the real- Rey! This one- must be that- project- of Hux's- and my fa- I mean- Snoke's!"

Somehow, 2187 decodes this properly. He unties the real Rey, and then she, too, is fighting the machine.

Together, 2187, Kylo and Rey successfully power down the machine-Rey. They turn to explain to the remaining crowd.

Kylo begins dramatically, "People of Metropolis... Snoke has lied to us all."

"He told us we were enemies. Really, we are all the same and he should be our enemy. This- thing- was the work of Snoke and the inventor, Hux. They wanted to snuff out human weaknesses, and get rid of most humans all together."

"I am not a robot," says Rey. "She is. She is wearing my face, but she does not wear my feelings. Can we work together to build a city where all of us get to see the sun?"

2187 continues, "If your family is missing, we will help you look. If they are gone forever, like mine is, we will support you. If your property is damaged, we will rebuild. If you own nothing, we will share. We can help each other."

Kylo is in awe of them: a new friend, a planner, a Head to think things through. And a new love, a giver, a Hand to reach out. It is left to him, then, to be a Heart.

"2187, you did such a fine job swimming with the children, it's like you are a dolphin. I feel like I could call you Fins!"

"And Rey- my dear- will you forgive me for thinking you lied to me? I was tricked by the other Rey at first, but I believe in you and I care for you."

"There is nothing to forgive," sighs Rey, and she melts into his arms. They kiss until 2187- Fins?- clears his throat.

Rey blushes. Kylo rolls his eyes and gives her one more peck, then turns, still holding her close, and addresses the crowd again.

"Let the Mediators between Above and Below be my darling Rey, and Fins, and my mother Leia if she will forgive me, too."

"What?" Cries Rey. "Your mother is Leia?!?!"

"It's a long story, sweetheart."

"Good thing we have the rest of our lives for you to tell it, then," she laughs.

Kylo- Ben- beams at her and sends one more sentence into the joyful crowd,

"And let the Mediator between our Heads and our Hands always be our Hearts."


End file.
